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In this interview, Stanford University physicist and Nobel laureate Burton Richter describes his strategy for gaining broader public and political agreement on how to change US energy policy. He recommends approaching the energy debate from three different perspectives—economic, national security, and environmental—and focusing less narrowly on climate change. Richter presents himself as a pragmatic moderate, trailblazing a path between climate “deniers” and “exaggerators.” He advocates replacing all coal-burning power plants with natural gas, adopting stricter fuel-efficiency standards, electrifying vehicles, building grid-scale storage for renewable energy, instituting a revenue-neutral carbon tax, and expanding nuclear power— all measures on which he sees potential for widespread agreement across political lines in the United States. Richter discusses ways to make nuclear power safer in countries that are new to it, such as requiring these countries to hire expert operators from more experienced countries for the first few years. He also shares his concerns about regulatory shortcomings in some countries. Richter remains optimistic about solving the challenges of climate change and recommends limiting future climate talks to a smaller group of nations as a way of making faster progress. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Of the three primary components of housing affordability measures—rent, transportation, and utilities—utility costs are the least understood yet are the one area where the cost burden can be reduced without household relocation. Existing data sources to estimate energy costs are limited to surveys with small samples and low spatial and temporal resolution, such as the American Housing Survey and the Residential Energy Consumption Survey. In this study, we present a new method for small-area estimates of household energy cost burdens (ECBs) that leverages actual building energy use data for approximately 13,000 multifamily properties across five U.S. cities and links energy costs to savings opportunities by analyzing 3,000 energy audit reports. We examine differentials in cost burdens across household demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and analyze spatial, regional, and building-level variations in energy use and expenditures. Our results show the average low-income household has an ECB of 7%, whereas higher income households have an average burden of 2%. Notably, even within defined income bands, minority households experience higher ECBs than non-Hispanic White households. For lower income households, low-cost energy improvements could reduce energy costs by as much as $1,500 per year. Takeaway for practice: In this study we attempt to shift the focus of energy efficiency investments to their impact on household cost burdens and overall housing affordability. Our analysis explores new and unique data generated from measurement-driven urban energy policies and shows low-income households disproportionately bear the burden of poor-quality and energy-inefficient housing. Cities can use these new data resources and methods to develop equity-based energy policies that treat energy efficiency and climate mitigation as issues of environmental justice and that apply data-driven, targeted policies to improve quality of life for the most vulnerable urban residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a theoretical perspective, the effect of international climate policy on individual willingness to take up climate protection efforts is ambiguous. An effective international climate policy may motivate individuals to increase their voluntary efforts to mitigate global warming (crowding-in). However, if individuals perceive international climate policy to be effective, they may decide to scale back their own voluntary climate protection activities (crowding-out). Relying on data from representative household samples from Germany and the US, this article empirically explores the relation between individual perceptions of climate policy and their planned adoption of six climate protection activities. It also tests the effects of a ‘warm glow’ motivation and whether this effect varies with the perceived effectiveness of international climate policy. The econometric analyses provide suggestive evidence that higher perceived justification and effectiveness of international climate policy crowd in voluntary individual climate protection activities in the US and Germany. In both countries, these activities are also positively related to the warm glow indicator, confirming that feelings which go beyond pure altruism help explain individual voluntary climate protection efforts. For the German (but not the US) sample, the effect of warm glow is stronger when international climate policy is believed to be ineffective. Key policy insights More effective international climate policy is expected to spur additional voluntary climate protection activities by individuals. Enhancing people’s trust in the outcomes of international climate policy likely raises their engagement in voluntary actions. In some cases, policy failure may be somewhat compensated for by greater individual action, motivated by warm glow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about municipal planning for energy reduction and climate change in conservative areas of the United States, where opposition to environmentalism is often vocal and persistent. This paper analyzes the experience of 31 municipalities in the Dallas-Fort Worth region of Texas implementing the federal energy efficiency and conservation block grant. A qualitative case study approach and extensive interviews with municipal staff yield a detailed description of the political discourse of energy issues and climate change planning. Many municipalities used the grant funds for necessary maintenance projects and had little impact on long-term energy independence or climate change leadership. A subset of municipalities expressed fear of citizen disapproval and some experienced significant opposition that changed or halted their efforts. Based on effective initiatives and common challenges, recommendations are made to foster energy and climate planning in conservative regions and improve implementation of national policies on the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem, research strategy, and findings:Increased demand for urban living, financial incentives for redevelopment, and conducive planning regulations are leading to significant commercial building reuse. This trend represents an opportunity to upgrade the energy performance of the existing building stock in older, more walkable downtowns and to achieve preservation goals. Some advocates of building reuse resist imposing the cost of energy improvements on associated projects, while many energy efficiency advocates do not distinguish how the opportunities and constraints differ between new and existing buildings. Building code officials experience this tension when reviewing improvements to existing buildings, and many find that sections of the widely adopted International Energy Conservation Code are pragmatically unenforceable. In this study we examine the existing-building energy challenge using a mixed-methods approach within one region as well as a national-level analysis of governmental data. We characterize promising regulatory strategies including exempting historic buildings (which is the status quo), exempting smaller buildings and less energy-intensive occupancies and systems, and creating simple lookup tables that provide succinct guidance to redevelopers and code officials. Takeaway for practice:Code officials enforce longstanding life-safety codes more assiduously than they do the newer energy codes, and these codes need revisions to make them more cost effective and enforceable. A better understanding and implementation of building energy codes can have positive implications for both energy performance and downtown revitalization. Success depends on better managing interdependencies among the national policy objective of energy efficiency, the ubiquitous local planning objective of downtown revitalization, and the bureaucratic challenges of regulating construction in existing buildings. Planners should bring code officials into adaptive reuse projects early. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this study, published information on non-process energy use, which includes lighting, heating, cooling, ventilation, humidity control, and particulate control, for industrial buildings has been analyzed and compiled and then represented in power intensity (W/ft2). More than 30 different sources of data related to industrial building energy use (covering about 82 buildings) were identified and analyzed. Energy receives a lot of consideration in analyzing prospective savings in industrial facilities since the industrial sector consumes more than 30% of the total energy in the United States. The main objective of this study is to establish representative ranges for non-process energy use that can then be used with full process the life cycle for industrial products. The industrial manufacturing buildings were classified into six categories according to non-process energy use. The power intensity for each building category was estimated from the available data. Previous analyses of industrial energy use often expressed non-process energy as a percentage of total energy but without clear values of actual non-process energy. This information is a low value because the actual non-process energy is then dominated by the dominator which is unspecified. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Treadmill of production (TOP) theory and ecological modernization theory (EMT) are adapted to a middle-range theorization of energy politics, specifying the conditions that each theory would best apply to struggles over the energy system. It is hypothesized that EMT will prevail when there are high levels of public awareness of an issue, a record of past regulation, a threat of future regulation, and disunity of the business class; and that TOP power relations are more likely to prevail are low public consciousness, absence of past regulation, low threat of future regulation, and high levels of business unity. The usefulness of this contextualized approach is explored using a historical qualitative case study of the struggle in the United States to implement national mandatory and voluntary definitions of energy efficiency for home appliances. The implications of the findings are discussed in light of efforts to transform energy systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]